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Same! I feel puzzled by the rave reviews (but also sad that I didn’t see what other people saw in it).

Sarah wrote: "Same! I feel puzzled by the rave reviews (but also sad that I didn’t see what other people saw in it)."

We're reading it together in the Newest Literary Fiction group this month. I can understand loving it for what it is--mysterious, filled with observations both uncanny and practical, and full of lovely small scenes like nothing I've read before.

I really enjoyed the undersea parts, the claustrophobic aspects, and the general reflections on grief/reacting to a spouse lost, but also was bored at times.

I love your gemstone analogy. You can't see the colours while they're in the black velvet bag, but I expect they're a pleasing mix of shapes.

Lark, I adore that description! "... like a handful of unset gemstones in a black velvet bag." Beautifully said.

Henk wrote: "I really enjoyed the undersea parts, the claustrophobic aspects, and the general reflections on grief/reacting to a spouse lost, but also was bored at times."

Henk, I liked your review a lot and I also thought about Annihilation as I read this novel. I was asking myself why the lack of rationality and logical momentum in that novel didn't bother me, where here it is a stumbling block for me. I think the difference is that Vandermeer sets up a repetitive, incantatory storytelling rhythm where the repetitions of certain words create the illusion of coherence. Like the repetition of tower, tunnel--neither of which make much sense but are repeated enough that I accept the reality of something being both a tower and a tunnel. I couldn't find the same solid thing to count on in this novel.

I do agree with you, I feel like there is an outer story that is sketched in braod lines, a woman's wife gets lost in the sea and comes back different and it ends the way it does, which I think is brilliant, and that's the skeletton of the story, the hardest part, which is sublime. Then comes the time to flesh it out, and that was a bit more unarticulated. I think this book could have been longer, but then perhaps maybe it would have been less impactful ?

Salmarambles wrote: "IThen comes the time to flesh it out, and that was a bit more unarticulated. I think this book could have been longer, but then perhaps maybe it would have been less impactful ? ..."

It might be it's exactly how it's meant to be, and says what the author means for it to say, but for me it feels like I would have loved Julia Armfield to suffer through a little more personal wrestling with the question 'what the heck am I trying to say here?' and if she had a solid understanding of her own intention then the next rewrite would have reinforced the core story that we both loved.

Yes exactly. The core story was beautiful though. This is way the star rating makes no sense at all.

This novel is like a handful of unset gemstones in a black velvet bag.
gorgeous description. i plan to read it. the title is a hook!

I feel the same, but felt I couldn’t give it any less than 4!

Frankie wrote: "I feel the same, but felt I couldn’t give it any less than 4!"

Yes, it's so original! I'm nostalgic for what might-have-been, though.

"Structural haziness" is such an elegant way of putting it.

This book owes a huge debt to Jeff Vandermeer, specifically Annihilation.

Raheel, just this week I read a book that I felt Annihilation/Vandermeer must owe a great debt to, The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard.

Fair. I thought those scenes were beautifully observed, and not boring. For me they helped to make Miri and Leah feel more like real people and so made the ending more moving - if we had only ever had the poetry I doubt I would have found this book so devastating, I needed the mundane ordinariness.

Just finished this book and think I had similar thoughts. I was really enjoying this book to begin with, and was partly relieved/disappointed that I didn't read it a couple of months ago whilst the whole Titanic submarine news was everywhere - it might have given it an even more horrific feeling.
It reminded me a bit of Leave The World Behind, where I am a bit frustrated with the characters actions or conversations, where they just don't do or say something that you think someone would do - no investigating the big drama, no going to speak to people about what's happening. Although I think it frustrated me more in this book, and I didn't feel too interested in the backstory of their relationship, although I can see why it was included.
An interesting read, despite not meeting my initial hopes (especially with that book cover). Somewhere between a 3 and a 4 for me, but maybe the ending didn't surprise/wow me enough to boost it up a bit.

Paul wrote: "It reminded me a bit of Leave The World Behind, where I am a bit frustrated with the characters actions or conversations, where they just don't do or say something that you think someone would do - no investigating the big drama, no going to speak to people about what's happening. ..."

Paul, it's really interesting to compare this book in my head with Leave the World Behind. I hadn't thought of this and it's so intriguing. There is a certain acceptance, in both books' characters, of fantastic, terrible, inexplicable things. For the most part the characters just go on. It's not even that they're enduring something terrible, or being brave and stoic--it's more that they don't have the imagination to react appropriately. Now I'm wondering whether this condition, this dazed condition, isn't exactly how humans behave when overwhelmed by events. Covid, all those people dying, and for the most part we just carried on and now it's like it never happened. Climate change, our inability to react with proper imagination. We're like one of those antelopes getting eaten by a lion in a nature documentary. Those antelopes always look so calm.

Great review! Love the velvet bag description! Going to read soon.

100% agree with this review! Try as I might I could not get into this book.

Excellent review. This book left me so unsettled.

Tour final sentence is exactly how I felt about the book!

I think what the author is trying to get at with the cup of coffees and conversation with friends is about how isolated you feel where there is a loss, or when you are dealing with a person who has an illness but yet you don't know how to address it, you try to meet up with friends but you are loss for words and it is obvious they can't relate. So I actually really liked that the author include those because it resonated with me and the struggles I have had in my own life when dealing with a situation that isn't as familar to those around me.